Dynamic Communities

Sit down for a cup of coffee or lunch in Stratton, and almost invariably, one or two of the locals will begin a story about a business concept that sounded impossible – until some can-do person in Stratton brought it to delicious fruition. Speak to nearly anyone at the bank, and you’ll hear about an unlikely business success, a community project that turned out extraordinarily well, or a successful start-up…

Founded in the late 1880s by immigrants mostly from Stuttgart, Germany, it’s no wonder the friendly town of Eustis still honors the sausage with an annual affair drawing thousands of visitors from all over Nebraska…

Nestled in the beautiful Medicine Creek Valley, Curtis is roughly equidistant between McCook, Lexington and North Platte. Separated by only seven miles, Curtis proudly proclaims excellent school systems and today, as it has been for millennia, the primary business in Frontier County is farming and ranching. Archaeological evidence suggests the population of the valley is roughly the same now as when it was occupied by Native Americans 1300 years ago…

About as far south and west as you can go and still be in Nebraska, Benkelman is a town with a view, built on spectacular terrain featuring lookouts and ledges. Only three hours from Denver International Airport, you’ll find the hectic, high-priced urban lifestyle evolves into wholesome, affordable, rural living in Benkelman and Dundy County…

When you enter the city offices of Alma, you are greeted by a community slogan that reads: “Alma is for YOU!” This is a statement quite fitting for a lakeside town that is anything but a seasonal destination…

Cambridge is the kind of town where canopies of maple, ash and oak trees shade sturdy wood-sided homes and walkers, bicyclists and runners enjoy wide sidewalks, a park with a creek, and miles of well-kept trails. It’s a town known for a friendly, front-porch culture and a healthy lifestyle, opportunities to prosper in business, quality schools, and a strong sense of community…

Surveys tell us that one concern of people considering the change to a rural lifestyle is the quality of rural schools. They shouldn’t worry. A recent Department of Education study found that nationwide, rural children did better than their urban counterparts in science and math. The town of Axtell in rural south central Nebraska is a perfect example of what’s going on in rural education…

Although McCook, like many rural Nebraska communities, can boast of friendly people, excellent schools and low crime, it enjoys some amenities that many smaller communities don’t have, including McCook Community College, an airport with commercial service, a modern hospital and rivers, reservoirs and open space for hunting fishing, camping, boating and wildlife viewing…

Cruise into the Village of Oxford in south central Nebraska and you are greeted by a main street broad enough to park cars in the middle as well as at the curbs. The first Oxford citizens designed a spacious community with room to expand. Clean, wide streets and sidewalks with big, shady trees welcome customers and visitors…

If you could sit down at a drawing board to design the perfect small town, what would you include? Maybe you’d start with a superb education system, then add in gracious and affordable homes. You’d want to make sure you had a prosperous manufacturing sector so there would be good jobs and a sound economy, then perhaps you’d want to add…

If you were looking for someplace that embodied the kind of values America was built on – hard work, education, common sense, care for others – you wouldn’t have to look farther than Holdrege, Nebraska…